2017-09-26T21:41:12ZApproaches to Social Investment and Their Implications for Poverty in Sweden and the European Unionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1956/16622
Approaches to Social Investment and Their Implications for Poverty in Sweden and the European Union
Cronert, Axel; Palme, Joakim
Working paper
The concept of social investment has gained increasing traction among European Union policymakers, as a strategy to reconcile the
goals of employment, growth, and social inclusion. In recent years, however, scholars have criticized the social investment approach for not being able to achieve its intended distributional consequences and have raised doubts about whether the goals of increasing employment and decreasing poverty are reconcilable.
This paper argues that distinguishing between the ‘Nordic approach’ and the ‘Third Way approach’ to social investment is key both for describing policy developments and for understanding the relationships between social investment policies, employment and poverty.
Based on an exploration of recent trends in social investment policies, employment and poverty in Sweden, we propose that the recent noticeable increase in poverty can best be accounted for by changes in social insurance policy and tax policy that represent a shift from the Nordic approach to the Third Way approach, whereas an ‘employment vs. poverty’ trade-off is mitigated by the sustained presence of a compressed wage structure. A set of panel data analyses on 24 European countries over the last decade provide preliminary evidence that
these mechanisms extend also beyond Sweden.
2017-09-11T00:00:00ZCan the European Union 2020 Strategy Deliver on Social Inclusion?http://hdl.handle.net/1956/16140
Can the European Union 2020 Strategy Deliver on Social Inclusion?
Petmesidou, Maria
Working paper
In 2010, amidst the financial and sovereign debt crisis, the launching of a novel European strategy for “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” signalled a significant step in the European coordination strategies for tackling poverty and social exclusion. Crucial in this respect is the unprecedented prominence accorded to a quantified goal in poverty reduction across the EU, to be achieved by 2020, along a supranational governance process that sets the ambitious aim of bringing the social field within the framework of EU financial and economic governance. In this paper, I critically examine how this new strategy has fared so far and what the expectations are for its effectiveness in combating poverty and social exclusion within the set timeframe.
2017-06-30T00:00:00ZSocial Connectedness and Poverty Eradication: A South African Perspectivehttp://hdl.handle.net/1956/15855
Social Connectedness and Poverty Eradication: A South African Perspective
Samuel, Kim; Uwizeyimana, Jacqueline Bagwiza
Working paper
Building on earlier work which argues that social isolation can be both a consequence of living in poverty and a cause of its persistence, this paper presents case studies of two South African programmes to illustrate how strengthening social connectedness may help to diminish intergenerational poverty. The central argument of the paper is that social connectedness can play a crucial role in providing access to social capital, in altering the exclusionary processes that entrench intergenerational poverty, and in helping to reduce other deprivations of multidimensional poverty.
One of the case studies involves rural and urban communities in five of South Africa’s nine provinces and the other is situated in urban Johannesburg. Through the case studies, and with reference to research on Indigenous knowledge, worldview and conceptions of connectedness, the paper explores mechanisms that promote social connectedness as a driver for eradicating intergenerational poverty. In so doing, it considers how an expansion of people’s relational capabilities can alter exclusionary processes that impair the prospects and well-being of poor children and youth. The paper concludes that attention to social isolation provides insight into the enabling conditions for making progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 1 (end poverty in all its forms) and Target 10.2 (empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all).
2017-05-01T00:00:00ZGlobal Inequality and Global Poverty Since the Cold War. How robust is the optimistic narrative?http://hdl.handle.net/1956/13048
Global Inequality and Global Poverty Since the Cold War. How robust is the optimistic narrative?
Edward, Peter; Sumner, Andy
Working paper
This paper considers how the growth in global consumption since the end of the Cold War, has impacted on the co-evolution of global inequality and poverty. It is often suggested that this era of growth has led to a dramatic reduction in global poverty and to the emergence of both a new global middle class and a more equal world. We argue that this dominant and optimistic narrative on globalisation since the Cold War is considerably more methodologically fragile than it at first seems. Further, we suggest that this has implications for the UN goal to end global poverty by 2030. The fall in inequality is almost exclusively attributable to the effect that the rise of China has had on betweencountry inequality. Changes in global inequality across the rest of the world are much more modest. Much heralded falls in global poverty have raised the consumption of the poorest, but the extent to which that is the case depends on where one draws the global poverty line as at the lower end of the global distribution a change of just 10c can remove 100 million people from global poverty headcounts. If one takes instead the average poverty line for all countries (a more genuinely global poverty line) of USD 5 per day poverty headcounts have hardly changed since the Cold War. Meanwhile, the numbers living at risk of sliding back into poverty (between USD 1.90 and USD 10 a day) grew by 1.6bn, compared to a rise of 1.1bn in the numbers living above this level, and around half of those living above this level saw their share of global consumption fall. We suggest therefore that the dominant or optimistic narrative, of falling poverty and an emerging ‘middle class’ largely free from the threat of poverty, disguises both considerable growth in the size of the ‘global precariat’ living in conditions that most in the developed world would consider to be well below ‘middle class’ and an erosion of the financial security of a significant proportion of those living at higher consumption levels.
2016-10-01T00:00:00Z